merlin

Nature is putting on a show this year!

Marvelous colors!

Correct. Nowadays the fashions going on are three: sharpness, megapixels and bokeh. All of the three mean nothing, or so, about how good is a photo.

Thank you, for your very kind words!
That The folks that work there sure did a fine job of taking care of that place.

Sample-to-sample variation has probably always existed in camera lenses, but, it’s much more obvious now that so many people are pixel peeping their images at 100 or 200 percent. It’s good to know the ultimate capabilities of your lenses, but sharpness is just one facet of imagine quality and image quality is just one facet of a good photograph. So, overly obsessing about sharpness distracts from the ultimate goal of creating a great image. 

#2 is spectacular, Jerry!

Sometimes  the Internet echo chamber drives me crazy. I’ve had this lens for about two weeks, tested it against my other Fuji lenses and I’m very happy with it. But it gets bashed by many who have never even used it or owned it. 
 
It’s  relatively small and lightweight considering  its 5:1 zoom range, has excellent build quality and a very versatile and useful zoom range. Very fun to shoot with  
It’s  very sharp in the center 1/3rd  at all focal lengths, corners sharp between 18 and 70mm, slightly less sharp in the corners at 16 and 80mm. I think this is excellent results for a lens of this type. 

Is there something wrong with your camera those are all sharp?

More Snow!

Bitten by the Cold

Here is a photograph taken yesterday afternoon.  It is of a Pinus uncinata in our garden.  Focus looks good to me.

Lens arrived about an hour ago.  It needed a firmware upgrade to 1.02 from 1.0.  It is very well-built, and the aperture and zoom rings work smoothly but are not overly loose.  It is much less bulky and heavy than I expected, and will make an excellent choice for hiking and other outings.
Here are some quick shots.

I've been reading nothing but issues with focusing with this lens?  Which has caused me to hold off for now?

spooky scary beautiful

Part Three:

Part Two:

Some of the artists came up with very, very intricate designs.

In spite of the event staff pleading for people 'do not touch the pumpkins', some folks touched them and said 'yes, these are real'.
 
onto Part Three ...
 

Part One:
For the past few years, ok, the past seven years, the area I live in has taken part in the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, a festival started in Oxford, Massachusetts in 1988 and spread out to other areas. This year I was able to get by and see some of the pumpkins:

Into the Valley of The Pumpkins:


onto Part Two ...